


invisible smoke

by banesapothecary (komhmagnus)



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, David Rose deserves nice things, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 19:40:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20019943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komhmagnus/pseuds/banesapothecary
Summary: David doesn’t know what the woman is saying anymore. He’d been trying to focus on her words, but right now, nothing makes sense except for two facts:  (1) hecannotcry in the middle of the store and (2) Patrick is here, so everything will be okay.





	invisible smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> This is the first fic I've written for Schitt's Creek and David and Patrick. I really hope y'all like it! Thank you to Megan (@brewrose) for beta-ing this for me because I'm a hot mess 😂
> 
> I'm a swim coach and we had some irate parents at a recent meet who inadvertently inspired this a little bit.
> 
> The title is from The Archer by Taylor Swift 💘

David is always glad to see Patrick when he returns to the store from visiting vendors. Relieved, even. But today it’s on another level, and as soon as he hears the door open, he feels like he can breathe for the first time in hours.

Of course, it’s  _ really _ only for the last several minutes that his breathing has been shallow and that he’s been desperately trying to contain the tears in his eyes. Tear tracks are  _ not _ a good look and definitely  _ not _ correct, especially not while customers are in the store.

David doesn’t know what the woman is saying anymore. He’d been trying to focus on her words, but right now, nothing makes sense except for two facts: (1) he  _ cannot _ cry in the middle of the store and (2) Patrick is here, so everything will be okay.

Probably. The little girl is still crying, so that isn’t exactly working in his favor.

“What’s going on?” Patrick’s voice breaks through the woman’s complaints and the child’s screams, still a little muffled by the apparent invisible cotton that has wrapped itself tightly around David’s ears.

Patrick is beside him now. David can feel him there, can feel Patrick’s hand lightly gripping his shoulder. David closes his eyes for a second and focuses on the warmth, breathing just a little bit easier. Patrick’s hand squeezes once, twice, three times, the pressure grounding David more.

When he opens his eyes, he can hear again, though he isn’t sure he wants to. The little girl seems to have calmed down a bit. Maybe Patrick’s magical calming effects work on everyone, not just him. They need to practice Patrick’s magical abilities, David decides, since they don’t seem to be working on the woman just yet.

She’s still yelling. David wants to yell, too.

The thing is, he knows it wasn’t entirely his fault. The second Patrick had left earlier for his errands, an influx of customers flooded the store, and David was alone to help all of them. For two hours straight, he’d bounced around the store frantically trying to explain to Roland what exactly body milk was while avoiding his terribly made innuendos on the subject, reading aloud every ingredient in  _ every single one _ of the lotions they carried to an elderly woman who kept saying he reminded her of someone he’d never heard of and probably never would again, and rushing back to the register before the checkout line extended out the door.

To say David was stressed all day was an understatement—and that’s true on a regular, Patrick-with-him-in-the-store-all-day kind of day. The Richter scale couldn’t measure the true extremity of David’s stress levels today.

His best efforts to keep everything under control had  _ obviously _ failed, because now there’s a screaming and probably hurt child in his store, with her equally loud and more than definitely angry mother and it‘s  _ his fault. _

Patrick’s never going to leave him alone in the store again. Clearly he can’t be trusted—after all, he’d caused  _ this _ , and— 

Patrick’s hand squeezes his shoulder again, and David realizes his breath is coming way too hard and his heart is beating way too fast. Again.  _ A heart attack, _ he’d thought the first time it happened. He still isn’t entirely convinced that isn’t what afflicts him, no matter what Ted says.

“I got this,” Patrick murmurs under his breath, and David knows the woman didn’t hear it over the sound of her own angry voice. David nods, still not looking at Patrick but utterly relieved. He slips away quietly into the backroom, hearing Patrick interject calmly as he goes and, for the first time in what feels like hours, the woman falls silent.

The couch is still in the backroom, though its use is now far more PG since Patrick got his own apartment, but David ignores it. Instead, he presses himself into the corner of the room and sinks down to the floor, hugging his knees and shutting his eyes tightly enough to see colors behind his eyelids.

He tries to slow his breathing, remembering the breathing technique Ted had shown him and the calming techniques Patrick had helped him research after the first time he had a panic attack in front of his fiancé.

But Patrick’s hand isn’t on his shoulder anymore, and his warmth isn’t at David’s side, and he feels so alone again and he can’t breathe and he can’t see and he can’t think and— 

The colors behind his eyelids have been replaced. Instead, the afternoon replays itself over and over, and David wants to rip his hair out. (He doesn’t. Even in the midst of a panic attack, he’s all too aware of how carefully he’d styled it that morning.)

He’s in the front of the store again, with the crowd and the many voices and questions and people needing to be checked out and the items needing to be restocked. He’s running himself thin, and David  _ really _ hopes Patricks comes back soon. Relief floods through David once the store is empty again because everyone left satisfied, and he  _ did it. _ He survived. And then David’s on the step ladder again, because the candles on the top shelf need to be restocked  _ right then _ while he has a chance and he’s thinking about it, and the Apothecary’s door opening suddenly startles him a bit and he loses his balance and manages not to fall flat on his ass by some miracle, but instead he bumps into  _ something _ and then the sound of wails fill the store, and—

“David.”

Patrick’s voice cuts through the cloud of panic. David’s eyes shoot open, meeting Patrick’s concerned gaze. Patrick squeezes his arm, and David tries not to worry about how he didn’t even realize Patrick was touching him until right then. Instead, he forces himself to copy his fiancé’s long and even breaths.

“What happened after I left?” David rasps when he finally feels like he can breathe again. The air feels like heaven in his lungs.

Patrick shakes his head, raising the hand not on David’s arm to cup his cheek. “Are you okay?”

David shrugs.

Patrick frowns, leaning in to press a kiss to David’s forehead before standing. David immediately misses his warmth, but he doesn’t have to miss it long. Patrick reaches a hand down to pull David up, who takes it without a second thought and doesn’t disentangle their hands once he’s standing. He’s pulled into a hug, feeling the soft press of Patrick’s lips against his neck and David wants to cry all over again.

“Let’s go home,” Patrick murmurs against David’s sweater.

“But the store—” David protests, albeit weakly.

“Doesn’t matter right now,” Patrick finishes for him, leaving no room for discussion. David is grateful. He hides his face in a blue button down that smells like home.

The drive home is mostly quiet. Patrick turned the radio’s volume down as low as it could go while still being audible, so every now and then David catches a few lyrics and melodies over the sound of the engine. He doesn’t realize until they’re pulling into their apartment complex’s parking lot that the music is playing from one of his playlists. It’s the one he made a few months ago of all the songs that make him feel happy. Patrick had smiled when David first shared it with him. Patrick didn’t know that most of the songs on the playlist reminded David of him.

They’ve been holding hands for the whole drive, and David tightens his grip at the realization. Patrick squeezes back, looking back at David with a question in his eyes as he pulls into a parking space. David doesn’t say anything as Patrick leads him upstairs, hands still intertwined. The silence is comforting, somehow, and he loves it.

Patrick kisses his cheek once they’re inside the apartment, so tenderly David thinks he might break. “Why don’t you go shower and change, and I’ll order some pizza,” he suggests, and David falls a little more in love.

He nods and says, “I love you,” because it’s the only response he’s capable of formulating right now. So he showers, and the water is probably definitely way too hot, but David can’t bring himself to care. It feels good against his skin that’s been shivering, even though it wasn’t exactly cold. When he dresses, he puts on an old pair of dark blue sweatpants and a long sleeve t-shirt, both Patrick’s. If Patrick notices, he doesn’t mention it when David returns to the living room, instead handing him a box of the just arrived pizza and pulling him down on the couch next to him. Flipping channels, Patrick finally settles on an episode of House Hunters, and David pretends not to notice Patrick’s smile when he starts making the occasional snide comments about the homes’ aesthetics.

David finds himself curled into Patrick’s side once they finish eating. It’s good, it’s comforting, and for the first time since Patrick left the store that morning, David is starting to feel like himself again. He’s feeling human again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Patrick asks into David’s hair.

“No,” David whines, but he does. “There was a big rush right before they came in, and I’d finally gotten everything sorted and I was still very stressed about the whole thing, and I was on the step ladder.” Patrick’s hand found its way to David’s hair while he was talking and now he’s playing with the ends of it. David shivers at the sensation, scooting closer. “And the door caught me off guard, and I barely stopped myself from falling off the ladder, but I knocked her down. I didn’t mean to, I swear, I really—”

“David,” Patrick interrupts, pressing a kiss into his hair. “I know you didn’t. And so did her mom.”

David shakes his head. “No, she hates me. You heard her.”

“She was stressed, too, and freaked out because her kid was screaming. She doesn’t hate you, David,” Patrick says, running a hand up and down David’s arm.

David hums noncommittally. “It doesn’t matter, anyways. It’s not like I’m gonna be running the store by myself anymore.”

Patrick is quiet for a moment, hand still on David’s arm. “What are you talking about?”

David wants to hide, but he forces himself not to. “I fucked up today. Clearly I can’t be trusted alone in the store, anymore.” His voice is smaller than he likes and he turns to tuck his face into the crook of Patrick’s neck. His fiancé knows him better than that, though, and gently lifts David’s chin.

“Look at me, baby,” Patrick says, voice soft but firm. David tries not to melt at the pet name, but it’s been a long, terrible, no good day, and he really, really loves Patrick. “You did not fuck up today.” His eyes search David’s, no room for argument in them. David fights the urge to look away as Patrick continues. “You lost your balance on the step ladder, and the woman shouldn’t let a toddler run rampant through a store on her own anyways. It was not your fault, David.”

David can’t see again, but this time the tears aren’t from distress. “Okay,” he whispers after a moment.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Patrick repeats, prompting David with a raise of his eyebrows.

David sighs, rolling his eyes a bit just for the dramatics. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“And you are more than capable of running the store by yourself,” Patrick adds, nodding when David raises an eyebrow at him.

“And I am more than capable of running the store by myself,” David repeats dutifully, if not a bit sarcastically. Patrick’s words mean a lot to him—too much, after today. David wonders if too many emotions in one day might send him into a coma.

Patrick laughs at the expression on David’s face. “Good,” he says, kissing his forehead again. “Glad we got that settled. I think it’s movie night. Your turn to pick.” If they weren’t already engaged, David might’ve asked Patrick to marry him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated 💖
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr and Twitter @banesapothecary!


End file.
